Other Races This Weekend
MIT and UMass squared off in Boston with UMass taking a 7 second victory over the MIT novice eight. MIT's V8 is listed 2 seconds later followed by the MIT novice B boat. I'm not sure what to make of these results, not because I doubt UMass's speed, but because I would question MIT's novices going faster than the varsity. Maybe someone can tell us more?
The Cal lights raced heavyweights at the Santa Clara Invite on Saturday, finishing fourth behind St. Mary's, Santa Clara, and Sonoma State.
In Newport Beach, Chapman and Long Beach State raced light eights, with LBS winning by just over 7 seconds.
PLU and Puget Sound raced, but no events showed lightweight boats.
In Ohio, OSU's Ohio Cup was canceled as a result of permitting issues.
7 comments:
I thnk your switch of Princeton and Wisconsin is premature. You should have waited until Princeton and Georgetown race next weekend and the two sets of boats that raced this weekend can be compared. Not saying you're wrong, but there's no basis for comparison between the two boats since Princeton passed Wisconsin at the Head of the Charles.
You make an excellent point, and one I considered. In many ways these in-season rankings are a weekly temperature check and because I thought Wisconsin came off the weekend better and with more momentum, I thought it would be a bit cowardly of me not to make the switch. As you point out though, I could look stupid in a week. I think I'll run the poll again in two weeks which should give us rankings coming into Sprints and Dad Vails. If people vote honestly, and once, I think that ranking will certainly be more valuable than anything I'd do and probably better than the coaches' as well.
I think the odd results in the UMass/MIT race had a lot to do with the weather and the lane placement. The wind was horrible, and there were whitecaps out in the middle of the river where MIT varsity and their second novice boat were, while MIT's first novice boat and UMass were closer to shore where things weren't quite as horrific.
The weather was horrible in all 4 lanes. The lanes were all equally within the middle of the river facing the large swells. Also there was trouble at the start where the UMass Varsity and the MIT Novice A did not hear the start of the race, therefore those 2 boats started somewhere between 2-3 strokes after the MIT varsity and MIT Novice B boat had already started.
As a member of the MIT Varsity Lightweight team, I just wanted to clarify that the opinion stated in the above comment placing the brunt of the blame on the “weather and lane placement” is not the opinion of the entire team. I am not prepared to try to analyze and make any excuses for the “odd” results; they stand as they are. It is true that the start was skewed against UMass’ Varsity and MIT's Novice A, which would essentially nullify any truth behind the “more sheltered lanes” argument. I am embarrassed at the attempt to belittle those that got their bows across the line first, and I hope that the results we can put out for the rest of the season will do better justice to our training and potential, and will hopefully do most of the talking from now on.
Sorry if this comes across as harsh to whoever posted the anonymous comment... this is also just my opinion.
Thanks for the comment, Sarah; not an easy one to make. I suppose I started this whole thing by questioning the results, but there's often a backstory to these races that outside observers never know about. In this case, instead of worrying about the results, we should've been congratulating UMass as well as your own novices, who rowed in terrible weather to come within 7 seconds of the winning boat. In any case, there's a lot of racing yet to come, with plenty of opportunity to row fast.
I apologize if it seemed like I was attempting to belittle anyone; I was merely trying to offer one possible explanation. I also was not aware of the "skewing" of the start. Thank you and the other anonymous poster for clearing that up, and I apologize again if I offended anyone on either team.
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